Five Important Components To Build A Rock Solid SEO Strategy

David Shiffman is a partner and brand elevator at Brandamos, a brand elevation agency.

SEO continues to evolve, yet many website owners seem to be stuck in the past with their online marketing and SEO strategies. What worked a few years ago doesn’t work any longer, especially if you’ve been executing short-term tactics instead of long-term strategies.

You used to be able to write keyword-stuffed copy. Blast a few thousand backlinks at it, and you’d rank very well. However, Google has put most spammy strategies to rest with their series of algorithm updates. SEO is more complex now than it’s ever been: It’s not as cut and dry as simply checking items off a checklist. Sadly, most people end up basing their strategies off of outdated or conflicting advice, neither of which will help your business get the results you want.

I have been working in the digital marketing space for over 10 years developing and executing marketing strategies in some of the most competitive niches online. Below, we look into the most important SEO factors that you should focus your online marketing efforts around.

1. Backlinks Are Still Incredibly Important

A number of online authorities have denounced backlinks as being harmful.According to the latest research from Brian Dean of Backlinko, backlinks are quite the opposite: They’re actually one of the most important Google ranking factors.

However, not just any links will do. You need backlinks from relevant and high-quality domains. This means that the days of buying backlinks, producing spun content, submitting it to web 2.0 sites and leaving thousands of spam comments are dead. The best kind of links you can get are contextual links. This means that strategies like guest blogging and networking with high-quality bloggers in your niche are still relevant.

Bounce rate has a lot to do with your rankings. What is bounce rate exactly? It’s the portion of your readers that hit the back button the moment they land on your website. You want this number to be as low as possible. After all, the fewer people that are immediately leaving your site right after they land on it, the higher quality your website must be.

If a lot of people are landing on your website and immediately hitting the back button, then that’s probably a good sign to Google that people don’t like your content. Sites that focus on user experience tend to have a lower bounce rate and a higher dwell time (the total amount of time a user spends on your website).

A good way to improve the user experience on your website is to improve the design of your blog and make your writing more compelling. For example, the first few sentences of your blog post should immediately hook your reader and make them want to read more. Second, the design of your blog should provide a good reading experience for your viewers. This means having things like a large, readable font, minimizing distractions like pop-ups, and including engaging media elements.